Do I go with 2 27 inch monitors or one Ultrawide?

[yaboi824]

For a while now I have been using a dual monitor set up, one being a nice new one and the other a crappy old one, I am thinking of upgrading the older monitor for a new better one, Than it occurred to me I could just have a single Ultrawide monitor and have possibly a bigger screen and for cheaper depending on the monitor. however I use my PC for gaming and work, so I usually have a game on one screen and everything else on the other, I am not too sure if the ultra wide would let me do something like that. Could someone help me decide and lay out the significant pros and cons?

[RAS_3885]

13 minutes ago, yaboi824 said:

For a while now I have been using a dual monitor set up, one being a nice new one and the other a crappy old one, I am thinking of upgrading the older monitor for a new better one, Than it occurred to me I could just have a single Ultrawide monitor and have possibly a bigger screen and for cheaper depending on the monitor. however I use my PC for gaming and work, so I usually have a game on one screen and everything else on the other, I am not too sure if the ultra wide would let me do something like that. Could someone help me decide and lay out the significant pros and cons?

I believe some LG monitors allow for the screen space to be natively broken up into "virtual displays" to allow this, otherwise you'd need to use a third party app to manage this all on one screen. Using one of your existing monitors as a dual-screen set-up with the ultrawide would be the easy way around this, and is the route I took when I switched to one.

 

I love my ultrawide and don't see myself going back for my primary display anytime soon. Productivity it's just awesome, and gaming is more immersive for the games I play. The downside is that you are pushing ~30 percent more pixel for an ultrawide compared to a 16:9 screen (assuming 21:9 ultrawide that is) so for gaming the GPU load it noticable.

[minibois]

11 minutes ago, yaboi824 said:

I usually have a game on one screen and everything else on the other, I am not too sure if the ultra wide would let me do something like that

You would need to run the game in borderless windowed mode and also set the location of that window. Far more hassle than just running the game on monitor #1 or #2.

You could also go for an ultrawide and keep your nice 27". that way you can run the game on one of the monitors and keep the rest on the other monitor. That way it's just a case of dragging your windows from one monitor to another/setting the game to one monitor or the other.

[NinJake]

Ultrawides are a game changer. Keep your 27" as well.

[yaboi824]

36 minutes ago, RAS_3885 said:

I believe some LG monitors allow for the screen space to be natively broken up into "virtual displays" to allow this, otherwise you'd need to use a third party app to manage this all on one screen. Using one of your existing monitors as a dual-screen set-up with the ultrawide would be the easy way around this, and is the route I took when I switched to one.

 

I love my ultrawide and don't see myself going back for my primary display anytime soon. Productivity it's just awesome, and gaming is more immersive for the games I play. The downside is that you are pushing ~30 percent more pixel for an ultrawide compared to a 16:9 screen (assuming 21:9 ultrawide that is) so for gaming the GPU load it noticable.

Yeah ig I could have my main monitor as the ultra wide and the second one as the 27inch. What ultra wide would you suggest?

 

[yaboi824]

38 minutes ago, minibois said:

You would need to run the game in borderless windowed mode and also set the location of that window. Far more hassle than just running the game on monitor #1 or #2.

You could also go for an ultrawide and keep your nice 27". that way you can run the game on one of the monitors and keep the rest on the other monitor. That way it's just a case of dragging your windows from one monitor to another/setting the game to one monitor or the other.

Yeah keeping the 27inch and having the ultra wide as a main display seems easier.

[RAS_3885]

3 minutes ago, yaboi824 said:

Yeah ig I could have my main monitor as the ultra wide and the second one as the 27inch. What ultra wide would you suggest?

 

I have the Alienware AW3418DW and like it overall, however, I think there are newer ones on the market at this point that will perform better. I personally would not go for 1080p ultrawide because I feel at the 32/34/38 inch screen size ultrawides come in that 2560x1080 is just too little resolution. 3440x1440 feels like a good sweet spot unless you're going for a larger screen like 38" or something (or wider than 21:9 aspect ratio).

 

I'd start by looking through rtings.com ratings for ultrawide gaming monitors to narrow down a few that have specs you're looking for (size, resolution, refresh rate, VRR, etc.).

 

https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/best/ultrawide-gaming